kagablog

Chris McGreal in Johannesburg

* Thursday March 13 2008

South African schoolchildren are so affected by crime that they play games of “rape me, rape me” and mimic robberies in the playground, according to the country’s human rights commission. In a report on school violence published yesterday, the commission said schools were the “single most common” site of crimes against children, such as robbery and assault, including rampant sexual violence, some of it by teachers.

The commission said it had identified a number of games pupils played in response to the violence, including one in which they pretended to rape each other. “This game demonstrates the extent and level … brutalisation of the youth has reached, and how endemic sexual violence has become in South Africa,” it said.

The report said that a fifth of all sexual assaults on young people occurred at school. A survey of 1,227 female students who were victims of sexual assault found that nearly 9% of them had been attacked by teachers.

The commission also found that some boys committed what they called “corrective rape” on lesbians, justifying the assault by claiming that it would make the victims heterosexual. “There is a growing phenomenon of corrective rape. This refers to an instance where a male learner rapes a lesbian female learner in the belief that after such a sexual attack the learner will no longer be lesbian,” the report said.

A separate study by the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme found that a quarter of secondary school students said that forced sexual intercourse did not necessarily constitute rape.

The human rights commission report said that more than 40% of the young people it interviewed had been victims of some form of crime. It recommended that the education department consider introducing metal detectors and fences at schools, after the Red Cross children’s hospital in Cape Town said it commonly treated school pupils who had been assaulted with fists, knives, machetes or guns, or who had been raped.

this article first appeared on the guardian.co.uk

Format, Length, Colour: 16mm, 67 min

Year of Release: 1994

Director: Ian Kerkhof

Shooting Location (Country): South Africa

Country used for Post Production: The Netherlands

Synopsis: A young South African filmmaker returns to his fatherland for the VPRO in order to make a film during the elections. But rather than casting a vote, Kerkhof makes a brutal, disturbing portrayal of violence in a society in psychotic crisis.

Production company: Stitching Zapruder/VPRO, Box 18252 1001 ZD, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

this synopsis first appeared on africafilmtv.com

African Greats life stories and achievements will be featured continuously in the Africa Hall of Fame Institution and each year a small number of these African Greats will be inducted into the AHOF as Africa Hall of Famers.

Film and T.V.

Ali Mazrui - Kenya; scholar, moderator of 1986 BBC TV series, The Africans
Amanda Strydom - South Africa; actress, cabaret performer, and singer
Anant Singh - South Africa; producer, Mr Bones, country’s highest-ever grossing film
Arnold Vosloo - South Africa; actor, Mummy, Mummy Returns, 24 season four

Basil Rathbone - South Africa; 1930s, 1940s Hollywood actor, Sherlock Holmes

Charlize Theron - South Africa; actress, winner of the 2003 Best Actress Academy award for Monster

Dani Kouyaté - Burkina-Faso; film maker, 2002 Sia, le rêve du python
David Lister - South Africa; film maker, creator of comedy Soweto Green (1963)
Djibril Diop Mambety - Senegal; filmmaker, Touki Bouki, (1989)

Gaston Kabore - Burkina Faso; film maker, Buud Yam

Haile Gerima - Ethiopia; filmmaker, of slavery-themed film Sankofa
Henry Cele - South Africa; actor, acted as Shaka Zulu in film of the same name

Ian Kerkhof - South Africa; film director, Nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!

Jean-Marie Teno - Cameroon; film maker, Aristotle’s Plot (1996)
John Kani - South Africa; theatre producer, also film producer Sarafina!, 1992
Joseph Henri - Gabon; film maker, Le Singe Fou

Ken Gampu - South Africa; actor, as witch doctor in TV series Black Velvet Band

Leon Schuster - South Africa; lead actor in hit film Mr Bones

Med Hondo - Mauritania; Senegalese father, filmmaker, Les Ambassadeurs, (1976)
Merzak Allouache - Algeria; film maker, Salut Cousin (1996)
Mohamed Camara - Guinea; film maker, Dakan (1996)
Moufida Tlatli - Tunisia; Arab woman film director, 1994 The Silences Of The Palace

N!xau - South Africa; actor in 1981 comedy film The Gods must be crazy
Nacer Khemir - Tunisia; director, actor, screen writer, Tawk al hamama al mafkoud

Omar Sharif - Egypt; actor, born Michael Shalhoub, took lead role in film Dr Zhivago
Ousmane Sembene - Senegal; film director and author of novel, God’s Bits Of Wood

Safi Faye - Senegal; film maker, Mossane (1996)

Tunde Adebimpe - Nigeria; Hollywood actor

Vusi Kunene - South Africa; TV actor, (2001) Diamond Hunters, Final Solution

this list was first published here

“i played one of the three rapists who are one rapist really, spread three ways so to speak, for ian kerkhof, a friend, a master of his craft, and one of the most original voices in cinema today. in “nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!” you will see what is to date my most impassioned performance. it’s wired. it’s crazy. it’s plain fucking insane. it’s honest. and it’s all true. that’s the horror.”
eric miyeni, january 1995

It can It be no coincidence that the filmmakers with a South African background who are active in Holland - Ian Kerkhof, Saskia Vredeveld, and shortly Daniel Daran - willingly deal with sadomasochistic themes, or at least include violent elements in their relationship films. Kerkhof, who won the Golden Calf in 1992 with KYODAI MAKES THE BIG TIME and graduates this year from the Dutch Film Academy, once said that it was impossible to grow up in South Africa without constantly being conscious of the violence in the relations between people. According to statistics uncovered by Kerkhof somebody is raped every 83 seconds in his country of birth.

For the first time since he came to Holland eleven years ago, Kerkhof shot a film in South Africa - during the april elections. To be precise, in Yeoville, a relatively well-to-do and progressive suburb of Johannesburg. CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST (nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!), produced as part of the “Lolamoviola” series of VPRO tv films, is the portrait of a “psychotic culture”, in the land of braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and rape.

Kerkhof cherishes few illusions about the entry of a democratic South Africa into the western civilization. He fears that the seventeenth century norms which are features of interpersonal relationships in the sick society will simply now be given the chance to export themselves.

To clarify this train of thought the director chose for an associative, theatrical form. Three actors (a black, a jew and a representative of the anglo-saxon culture) pour a stream of verbal obscenities over each other. The paradox of their performance is the tender undertone, as if they are desperately searching for another form of masculinity than the “machismo” that is forced upon them. This is apparent in the repetitive singing of the mantra “Nice to meet you, please don’t rape me” as well as in the images of cameraman Joost van Gelder which are flowing and composed with feeling for beauty in ugliness.

The problem for the outsider who is not initiated into this cruel world is that the barrier is too high. CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST conjures such an apalling glimpse into the depths of an unlivable hell, and then in a stylised form which hardly allows one room to breathe, that I have great difficulty imagining anyone who would voluntarily reach the end of the film. The uncompromising and claustrophobic formal approach that has become Kerkhof’s trademark, here reaches its hardest core to date. It is without doubt a key film in terms of a better understanding of Kerkhof’s obesessions, but I could never watch it again.

HANS BEEREKAMP
NRC HANDELSBLAD wed 1/6/94

gustav geldenhuys, matthew oats and eric miyeni in nice to meet you, please don’t rape me! (south africa, 1994)
(photo derek bernstein)

A young South African film maker returns to his fatherland for the VPRO in order to make a film during the elections. Wat can be expected of him other than that he casts his vote? He will visit his family, test the opinions of old friends, visit an election meeting and film the queues in front of voting stations. Something of the sort.

One measly row of waiting voters, two posters with De Klerk and Mandela (over which somebody urinates): that is about all in CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST (nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!) by Ian Kerkhof that directly refers to the day of the historic elections. Kerkhof filmed in Yeoville, the suburb of Johannesburg in which he was born. Even filmed at his old school. But not to surprise the editorial board of the VPRO with a pleasant report.

Producer Bram van Splunteren had to submit the film to a careful scrutiny to see whether Kerkhof’s tough dialogues were permissable for broadcast. Amongst others he stumbled on a monologue with an anti-semitic tone but decided to broadcast the film uncensored because the texts were acceptable within the context of the feature film that Kerkhof had chosen to make about his country of birth.

Kerkhof does not take part in the folk lore of rapportage about South Africa, that is one of the few things that makes CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST clear. Kerkhof’s film will make many eyebrows wrinkle. Those who are familiar with Kerkhof’s work will know his dark fascination for sex, violence and death. He uses rape as a metaphor for what has happened to the South African people during the period of apartheid. Three actors, two white and one black, play an “unholy trinity”, a terrifying trio who collectively represent the Yeoville rapist, but then not as realistic characters, rather as demonic archetypes.

Yeoville used to be considered a neighbourhood where the integration of black and white was successful. Until white women were raped by a black man. An innocent suspect, son of a prominent ANC member, is currently filing libel suits against newspapers who were greedy for a racist rape coup. “Finally here was proof that all black men want to rape white women” analyses Kerkhof. The suspect’s innocence was proved but the damage had been done. The trust and calm was gone from the neighbourhood.

“South Africa is racist and anti-semitic, only the liberals have an attitude of ‘not us!’” The South African variation of political correctness, positive intervention, which forbids negative images of people is according to Kerkhof “the new Stalinism”. “Everbody thinks that that now there is democracy in South Africa everything is ok. But a cross on a ballot paper doesn’t change anything.”

Experts that Kerkhof spoke to when researching the film maintained that the extreme levels of violence in the country were considered normal by many people, as was sexual violence. Every 83 seconds a woman is raped in South Africa. The predictions for the future are that that number would rise. “Meetings, ordinary day to day contacts are always coloured by the threat of violence. An ordinary exchange of ideas is almost impossible. All men are incredibly busy being men. Misogyny is a way of life, and that mentality isn’t changing. That goes for white racism and black anti-semitism too. I don’t believe that everybody is suddenly going to change. South Africans are in a psychotic crisis. South Africa has the best torturers and rapist in the world.”

In CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST Kerkhof turns the black and white stereotypes around, for example by getting the black actor to say “I’m Barend Strijdom” - the white murderer of 19 black people who received amnesty as a “political prisoner”. An actor with a mask of Verwoerd - architect of apartheid - rapes a showroom dummy. The three naked, chained actors sing “Everybody must get raped!”. A litany of names and events out of South African history are poured forth in the stream of hate filled agressive dialogues. Kerkhof, who claims to have looked at his fatherland with “a vagina’s eye view”, didn’t bother to vote.

HUIB STAM
VOLKSKRANT 1/6/94

winnie ryall in “nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!”, 1994
(photo derek bernstein)

“Nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!.” This sentence, sung as if an innocuous pop tune, functions as a recurring leit motif in the VPRO’s film CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST.

Three South Africans, a black and two whites, symbolise the “rapist culture” in their country where a woman is raped every 83 seconds. “South African women live in constant fear. It is a real rape culture. Rapists are everywhere. Occassionally it is a stranger, but the chances are greater that it is your father. The country is so stained by apartheid, the entire family structure has disintegrated. This is the lowest common denominator between black and white men: their attitude to women.”, says film maker Ian Kerkhof. The film was shot on location in Yeoville, a trendy integrated neighbourhood of Johannesburg, during the country’s first democratic elections. Kerkhof was born in Johannesburg and spent most of his youth in Durban. He left South Africa because he refused to be conscripted into the apartheid army and came to the Netherlands in 1983. He studied at the Dutch Film and Television Academy.

CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST begins with three stoned men who declaim around a cluster of fire tins. “When I became the plague, I became afraid of it. But there’s no going back now.” Or “our blood feeds the eye of the world”. The film revolves around this kind of primarily symbolic dialogue. “Now there’s hardly any goodwill left. We’ve swallowed all the lies we could stomach”. At the end of many scenes the trio sing the pleasant tune.

A showroom mannequin symbolises the raped woman. “She” sits with one of the three in a terraced cafe, his “office”. “I’m the man you can’t say no to because I choose you. Every bitch must have her day. I follow them to Yeoville and I’m white and polite so no problem.” Another rapist physically rapes the dummy and stabs it with a knife. Later on the symbol is smeared with black boot polish and tied with rope. The black South African paints the mannequin’s toe- nails in the colours of the new South African flag. All their pent-up rage and frustration is taken out on the mannequin.

The Afrikaans rapist sits on a rooftop and watches women with his binoculars. “I like a chick that thinks she’s safe. Burglar guards don’t help, if a man wants to get in he’ll get in.” The three sit around a restaurant table with a politican. They discuss the future. “At the moment a woman is only raped every 83 seconds”, says the politician, “but it’s your task to see that we step up the figures to one a minute by 1995. Rape is South Africa’s only growth industry and the prospects for the future are blooming.”

According to Kerkhof South Africans have been conditioned into wearing masks. “I reflect this in the film in a scene where one of the actors wears a mask of Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, while raping a mannequin which is adorned with a mask of Malan, the first apartheid prime minister. After the elections these masks, in other words stereotypical, pre-conditioned modes of behaviour, will only be replaced by new masks. Now the masks are smiling. Everyone is apparently each other’s friend and is pretending that apartheid is over with. But black and white don’t communicate with each other. The real struggle is only beginning now. It was easy when there was a clear and distinct “enemy”. All South Africans have been brought up in a sick and perverted society, now they will have to recognise the enemy within themselves in order to dispell it.”

The three actors adress each other, themselves and the audience. Fast camera movements and shots that fly by at lightning speed make the film somewhat chaotic at times. You really have to concentrate to follow everything that is happening. Furthermore Kerkhof refers to many historical issues that will not be immediately clear to everyone. You have to have followed developments in South Africa closely in order to completely understand Kerkhof’s cry of despair.

ANNEMIEKE KORTLANG
TROUW 1/6/94

HARDCORE CONFRONTATION WITH THE ENEMY INSIDE THE SOUTH AFRICAN

Right at the end of CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST (Nice To Meet You, Please Don’t Rape Me!) is a scene wherein the three main actors dance naked in a ruined building in Johannesburg while chained to each other. “It is the only scene that gave us any problems”, according to director Ian Kerkhof who is South African by birth.

“As a precautionary measure we had chosen election day as the day to shoot this scene. We suspected that the police would be too busy to pay us any attention. But someone had seen us at work and phoned in to complain. South Africans are extremely prudish. The result was four police vans, and twelve agents who jumped out at us wielding machine guns. We could only continue with the scene once the actors had covered their genitals. In the final shots they’re actually wearing jeans although you don’t see this in the frame.”

Perverted

CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST exposes the perverted-to-the-marrow South African society in a compelling way. South Africans have been raped by apartheid for so long that double speak has become their mentality. “As I have tried to show in the film, South Africans are conditioned to wearing masks. It would be good if they could express their hate to each other. Only then can a healing process begin. The time has come to lance the boil and expell all the pus from within.”

Metaphor

The rape theme doesn’t only play a figurative role. Fiction and reality are weaved seamlessly into each other. Ian chose the metaphor after he read about the Yeoville rapist whose crimes had upset the apparent racial harmony in this trendy neighbourhood of Johannesburg. Research uncovered the possibility that the man had been paid by the government and that high ranking army officials had given the order to systematically rape women who were political activists. “Every 83 seconds in South Africa a woman is sexually abused. The discussion between the three rapists and the government official who suggests that the figures should be stepped up in 1995 to one every minute isn’t merely a joke” according to Ian Kerkhof. “I interviewed many women rape survivors with the intention of placing their experiences in between my images. That did not happen eventually because the television version was only allowed to be 67 minutes long. In the cinema version, which is 82 minutes long, these interview fragments are used. What comes across primarily in these interviews is that both black and white women live their whole lives in constant fear. There is unprecedented hatred of women in South Africa”.
CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST deals out punishing blows, is (certainly in its use of language) extremely gross and throws a bucket load of questions at its audience. “This is deliberate, because only in this way is the audience compelled to make moral decisions for themselves. I refuse to dish out easy moral resolutions.”

For the actors the filming was an exceptional experience. “They found it refreshing to work with someone who at least tried to tell the truth. The rule of the game there is not to say what you think. Everyone is constantly busy with self-censorship and that won’t change so quickly, because it has been branded in for centuries.”

Ian Kerkhof, whose first feature film KYODAI MAKES THE BIG TIME won two Golden Calves, spent seven weeks in his country of birth. “Although the idea was born in Holland, I wrote the script in South Africa with Peter J. Morris. Casting went well until the actors read the script. The Afrikaans actor resigned immediately. He wasn’t prepared to take part because he had recently had a child. The problem with South Africans is that they are hot-heads, who aren’t prepared to discuss things they don’t like but simply resort to blows or bullets. In this instance he was worried that they would shoot him and not me, the actor and not the writer. The black actor after reading the script told me that he had to go to Germany! On Friday I had one actor and we were supposed to start rehearsals on the Monday! It was pure luck that I found Eric Miyeni. He is a well-known South African actor and has his own culture programme on television. Gustav Grass hails from avant-garde theatre. They turned out to be much better choices than the people I had originally cast.”

The film won’t be broadcast in South Africa. The nude scenes and the swearing won’t get by the censors. And that is a pity. If only for its stylistic qualities the film should definitely be seen there. It is in fact an extremely musical film, wherein the poetic quality of the images (often in the role of fourth person) are strongly supported by the rhythm of the words.

HANS PIET
HAAGSCHE COURANT 1/6/94

eric miyeni and matthew oats in nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!
(photo derek bernstein)

The South African film CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST (nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!) that was broadcast by the VPRO on 1 June is a sinister violent film of the lowest sort, full of disgusting language, littered with rapes, with viciousness and with nudity.

I ask myself whether a film which displays such devilish perversity should be allowed in Holland. The VPRO is obviously not concerned with morality and the mental health of society. Respect for fellow human beings, and particularly for women, is sorely lacking in this film.

The film preaches the complete rejection of authority. Everything is allowed. Stupid types and also the youth are easily influenced.

We demand to be spared this sort of film that is presented as “documentary” and as “entertainment”.

That the reality in South Africa is unfortunately like this does not change our opinion.

C. FELD
DE GELDERLANDER 16/6/94